Sociology of Music and Music Education

Course Code: MMAMUS_07

Masters Level Module

The sociology of music enquires into the social significance of music and the social organisation of musical production and reception. This module will focus on these issues with relation to the multiplicity of musical styles available in a plural society, paying particular attention to the development and social context of the music curriculum and music educational practices. The module will study the effects of the social context of music upon musical meaning, musical ability, and access to musical opportunity. Recent work, particularly in popular music studies, challenges the suitability of traditional musicological procedures for studying non-classical music. Other work, for example in music and gender studies or feminist musicology, is raising questions about men's and women's relationships to music as listeners, performers, composers and teachers, as well as about whether musical meaning can be gendered. Such issues in turn have implications for the content of the music curriculum in schools, which will be examined both from a historical perspective and in terms of questioning 'what counts' as valuable and worthwhile music.

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